As God continues to strip me of everything that is not of Him, I have found myself having some pretty intense realizations. It is ingrained in us from the time we are born that we always have to have the next step planned out. We have to make sure we are financially secure so we can live a mediocre life that is built around the accumulation of things. Things that will bring us a kind of happiness that will never last because too often there will be a new thing we need to make us happy. This is idolatry. This type of living will never lead to true happiness. What’s more, most of us walk around claiming to be Christians, yet we only adhere to the parts of the Bible that we think apply to us while the things that are at the very core of true Christianity, we seem to dismiss because it doesn’t sound appealing. We tend to find ourselves dismissing the very happiness we crave. This is the predicament that I have wrestled with for most of my walk…and God has firmly told me to STOP.
The Word of God is an all or nothing deal, meaning it all applies to our lives. We don’t have the luxury of picking and choosing what we want to follow and what we don’t. God gave us the most amazing gift by sending His son to the cross to die for us and yet we still crap all over His sacrifice by not giving Him what he asks for- which is ALL of us. And for some stupid reason we feel that the blessings that God will bestow upon us when we give it all up is not as good as the things we could “bless” ourselves with that are of this world. The main reason why it is so difficult to give ourselves fully to God and submit is because we have been brought up to think that self-reliance is the only way we will get where we need to go. By clinging to this way of life we are forfeiting the best from Christ in this world and the next.
“Anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 10:38-39
“Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Galatians 1:10
I have had the painful but beautiful realization that it is time to get my butt in gear. I can choose to go around being a lukewarm Christian who only goes to church on Sundays, never really taking the time to read The Word and only praying to God when I need something, or I can choose to live fully submitted to Him. Living a life where I carry my cross daily, a life where He is my supplier, a life where I have nothing but find everything.
